The New Front Door
"Just a minute...you have to go to the front door!" The little girl disappeared behind the corner of the small house. We could hear the key rattling around in the lock. It took a long time to get the door open. A few folks were impatient at the long wait in the hot sun. "The door is new, " I explained, "and it will be a great honor for us to come in through the new front door." In fact, the whole house was new. For fifteen years the mother had lived in a tiny, ramshackle home made of corrugated tin and cardboard and plastic. Every time it rained, the mother and her little girls and everything they owned got wet. The home had been constructed on part of a tiny lot by an older man who cared for the mother and her daughters like a father would. Because it was built on a shared lot, the home had not received any improvements over the years. Finally, after fifteen years, possession of the property trumped the legal issues and plans w...